


What You Don't Know Won't Break Your Heart

by Scrawlers



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime)
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, but with scenes that are pre-canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 23:43:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17032182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrawlers/pseuds/Scrawlers
Summary: Thanks to a flash drive that Malva gives him, Sycamore learns just how much information Lysandre had on Alan.





	What You Don't Know Won't Break Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while ago, but in light of Tumblr being . . . Tumblr, I've decided to archive everything here, just in case.
> 
> This fic can go along with another I wrote, "Of Particular Interest," but you don't have to read that one to understand this one.

It wasn’t until he was getting ready for bed one night that Augustine remembered the flash drive in his pants pocket.

It felt like it had been ages since he had received it—since it was tossed at him in the middle of the bullpen of the police station, where he had been waiting for Alan’s interrogation to finish. Malva of the Elite Four had been the one to give it to him, had flipped it from her perfectly manicured fingers and smirked as he had fumbled it before he caught it.

“You might find the information on it interesting,”she had said.

“Why?”he had asked. “What’s on it?”

“Certain files from Lysandre’s computer.”Her Cheshire grin had widened at the look on his face, even as she wrapped her arms loosely around her stomach. “I had a spark of intuition that I should copy his data before everything went down, and . . . well, I suppose it paid off.”

“Shouldn’t you give this to the police?”

“They wouldn’t be interested in what’s on  _that_  drive. They already have everything they need.”She had considered him, then shrugged before she started to walk toward the doors of the precinct. “Feel free to throw it away or ignore it as you will. I only thought it might be of interest to you, but whether you look at it or not won’t affect me either way.”

That had been the end of it. She had left before he could say another word, and he hadn’t seen fit to pursue her. Instead, he had turned back to the research he had been perusing on his laptop, and after a moment of consideration had slipped the flash drive into his pocket.

One month, give or take a day, had passed since then. Augustine wasn’t in the business of wearing the same pair of pants multiple days in a row (that had been acceptable in university, when it had cost money to use the laundry machines on or off campus and going home every weekend to wash his clothes wasn’t exactly feasible, but not so much now that he was a grown adult) and so he wasn’t entirely sure what made him suddenly remember the flash drive tucked into the pocket of the pair of pants he had, in his exhaustion after returning home from the precinct that night, dropped on the floor next to his clothes hamper. But whatever had sparked his memory, he  _did_ remember it just then. He hadn’t looked at what was on it when Malva had first given it to him, because even if she claimed the police wouldn’t be interested in the data on the drive, he still didn’t want any officers looking over his shoulder as he studied whatever it was. And when he and Alan had finally returned home, they had been too preoccupied with the impromptu party and medal ceremony, and after  _that_ , Augustine had been too exhausted to remember. But he remembered now, and though sleep still tugged at the edges of his eyes, and his bed (and more specifically his pillows and comfy blankets) looked more inviting than ever . . .

It could always wait until the morning. But in the morning  _Alan_ might see what he was looking at, and Augustine wasn’t so sure  _that_ was a good idea, either. Besides, now that he had remembered the flash drive, he was curious, if apprehensive. He wanted to know what was on it, what Malva had been so sure would interest him. So despite the fatigue that wore at his eyes and the allure of his pillows and blankets, Augustine rescued the flash drive from his pants pocket and retrieved his travel laptop from the case seated on his (otherwise unused) vanity chair. After making himself comfortable atop his bed (for there was no reason he couldn’t  _sit_ there, even if he wasn’t going to sleep just yet), he inserted the flash drive into the USB port and waited.

His travel laptop was not the most capable computer around, but it worked well enough in a pinch. After a moment or two of consideration (and what to Augustine’s ears sounded like a heavy sigh from the laptop’s fan), the flash drive was recognized, and the file explorer opened. There was only one folder contained on the drive, but when Augustine saw what it was named, his heart seized and his mouth went dry.

_ALAN [  ]_

That explained it, Augustine thought, as he swallowed to try and clear the obstruction he felt lodged in his throat. That explained perfectly well why Malva thought he would be interested in the contents of the flash drive. It didn’t, perhaps, explain why she thought the police  _wouldn’t_ be interested; she had known that they were interrogating Alan, she had known that they suspected him of being responsible, somehow, for the catastrophe that had befallen Kalos. But at the very least it explained why she thought  _he_ would want to know, particularly once she learned that he had been waiting there for Alan’s sake. This folder . . . this data that Lysandre had collected, whatever it was, was about Alan. That alone explained why Malva had seen fit to put it in Augustine’s hands.

Augustine took a deep breath. With a slightly trembling hand (and really, that was silly; he hadn’t even opened the folder yet, there was hardly a need to be so nervous), he moved his mouse cursor over to the folder, and double-clicked to open it.

While the flash drive contained only the one folder,  _that_ folder contained many more within it. Lysandre, it seemed, had been a big fan of organization. Rather than having dozens of files strewn about, everything was neatly categorized into easily understood folders:  _E-Mail Reports, General Observations, Mission Information & Progress, Physiological Data, Preliminary Observations, Training Progress, _and  _Video Reports._

Augustine hardly knew where to start.

He read over the folder names several times. Some, such as  _General Observations_ or  _E-Mail Reports,_ sounded interesting. Others, such as  _Physiological Data_ ( **especially** _Physiological Data_ ) sounded ominous. But after considering each of them in turn he finally settled on  _Preliminary Observations_ , feeling that, if nothing else, the word “preliminary” indicated it was a good place to start _._ He double-clicked the folder, and when he did, he found numerous text documents inside, each one titled by date. That in and of itself was fine, even if it didn’t immediately tell Augustine what was in each document. What wasn’t fine was the title—the  _date_ —of the very first document in the folder:

_15 Oct. 20XX_

Augustine read the date over several times, trying to force it to either make sense or change. When neither happened, and the date in the document’s title remained the same, he rested his elbows on his knees and put his hands together, his fingers pressed against his lips. October 15th . . . the document’s date was only  _two weeks_ after Alan had left home three years ago. Barely that, really, if Augustine thought on it. Alan had left home on October 3rd. October 15th was only twelve days later, rather than the full fourteen (though it wasn’t as if an added two days would make it any better, he supposed). Had Lysandre found him that quickly? Had he really become aware of Alan so soon after he had left home? And if so, then how . . . how had Augustine not known? Alan hadn’t dropped out of contact until about eleven months after leaving home. If Lysandre had truly found him within the first two weeks . . .

It had to be a mistake. It had to be. Gripping that thought like a lifeline, Augustine hovered over the October 15th document with his mouse and double-clicked to open it. The blue loading screen of his word processing program flashed across the monitor for only a moment before the document opened, and with the speed one used to tear off a particularly stuck bandage, Augustine skimmed the text to confirm that he had misunderstood what the document was, somehow.

He hadn’t, and as he read over what was written more carefully, he felt sick.

_15 October 20XX —_

_I traveled to Ambrette Town to personally retrieve the Kangaskhanite discovered in Glittering Cave. The Mega Stone is safe and is undergoing further research. However, the Kangaskhanite was not the most interesting discovery made today._

_There was a boy at the research facility in Ambrette Town. Approximate age: 11 or 12. Approximate height: 4’9”. Currently in possession of a charmander; unknown if it is a pet or a battling pokémon at this time. The boy was asking after Mega Stones, and continued on to Glittering Cave to search for them. He also seems to have some connection to Professor Augustine Sycamore. The language the researcher he spoke with used suggested he is the professor’s child, but the boy seemed surprised at the assumption. Further investigation will be required._

_Grunts have been assigned to keep tabs on the boy as he explores Glittering Cave._

That the researcher Alan had spoken with had assumed that Augustine was Alan’s father was not surprising. Augustine had lost count of the number of people who had assumed that Alan was his biological son over the years, and could distinctly remember his own mother pushing the subject, assuring him that if he had discovered he was bisexual and did have an interest in women after all (or if he had just decided to experiment, “as many young people do”) that it would be just fine and neither she nor his father would judge him. That  _Alan_ had apparently been surprised by the assumption was a bit unexpected, but Augustine supposed that perhaps it hadn’t come up naturally in the conversation. That would explain Alan’s surprise easily enough.

But everything else . . . Augustine remembered Alan’s trip to Ambrette Town and Glittering Cave, not two weeks after he had set out. He remembered Alan calling him before entering Glittering Cave, because he didn’t know how long it would take to search and he didn’t want Augustine to worry, and he remembered the phone call after, in which Alan reported that he hadn’t found anything there (but had battled strong trainers in the cave, trainers that Augustine now suspected were Lysandre’s Team Flare grunts). He hadn’t thought on that part of Alan’s journey in a long time, but he could remember it clearly now, even as his palms began to sweat and his stomach felt queasy.

Two things stood out starkly in the concise word document. One, Lysandre had noticed that Alan was searching for Mega Stones, something that Alan had decided to do to aid Augustine’s research. And two, Lysandre had noticed that Alan had a connection to Augustine himself—that the two were possibly related—and that . . . that had seemed significant enough for him to write down. Both of those facts alone made it sound an awful lot like Lysandre’s interest in Alan had less to do with Alan himself . . . and more to do with Alan’s relationship with Augustine.

Augustine closed the document. The next one in the list was titled  _17 Oct. 20XX_ , and though every part of him was railing that he did not want to read whatever was contained within, he double-clicked to open it anyway.

_17 October 20XX —_

_The charmander the boy has in his possession is indeed meant for battling. My grunts have battled him numerous times over the past several days and have lost every time. At this time it is unknown if the boy has any other pokémon in his possession. He did not use others in battle, nor did he catch others in Glittering Cave. He discovered the cave was barren of Mega Stones earlier this evening, and has decided to continue his search elsewhere._

_The boy is a strong and capable trainer, despite his youth. His interest in Mega Stones coincides with my mega evolution research. Professor Augustine Sycamore is researching mega evolution, and the boy has a potential tie to him._

_Chandler Baudin and Cherilyn Bonheur have noteworthy tracking capabilities. I’ve assigned them both to monitor the boy’s progress and provide me with regular updates._

His hand shaking, Augustine moved his mouse cursor to the red X at the top of the document window and clicked to close it. There were still more. There were still so many more documents (and videos, apparently, given the title of one of the folders) for him to look through. He already felt nauseous, and knew that looking through more of the information Lysandre had compiled on Alan wouldn’t help, particularly now that he knew that Lysandre had been monitoring him for the duration of his journey. But now that he had started, he knew that he couldn’t stop. He had to know everything Lysandre had written, needed to know what videos he had. Whatever surprise Alan had expressed when the researcher in Ambrette Town had assumed him to be Augustine’s son, it wasn’t as if she was wholly incorrect. There was no biological relation between them, but that wasn’t important. Alan  _was_ his son, in every way but name and blood, and that alone was reason enough for Augustine to need to know just how deep Lysandre’s manipulations ran.

The rest of the documents in the  _Preliminary Observations_ folder detailed information spanning the first eleven months of Alan’s journey—the first eleven months in which he  _had_ kept in contact with Augustine, before he all but disappeared off the face of the planet. Every now and again, one of the documents would contain a note linking it to one of the e-mails in the  _E-Mail Reports_ folder (e-mails which, Augustine discovered when he opened the first one, were written by either Chandler Baudin or Cherilyn Bonheur), or a similar note linking it to one of the videos in the  _Video Reports_ folder (videos which were filmed by the same two grunts as they stalked Alan across the Kalos region). Every time one of Lysandre’s documents referenced an e-mail, Augustine read it, and likewise, he watched every video that Lysandre’s documents pointed him to. But while he had felt a combination of nausea and numbness ever since he read the first two documents, it wasn’t until he reached an e-mail that had been sent on June 30th—and saw a video labeled with the same date—that he felt his eyes begin to sting.

_30 Jun. 20XX_

Alan’s thirteenth birthday.

The grunts had started recording as Alan received a package (his birthday gift, the one Augustine himself had sent him) from the delivery man in the Pokémon Center. Augustine watched as his then- thirteen-year-old son had darted to a bench off to the side of the Pokémon Center’s main lobby, where he then neatly opened the top of the box with a small pocket knife and pulled the letter Augustine had written to him free. That alone would have been enough; it would have been enough to watch him quietly read it, the toe of his boot lightly scuffing against the linoleum, Lizardon peering curiously at the gift inside the box. But Alan didn’t keep the letter to himself; instead, he had read it aloud to Lizardon, his voice bright and excited, his eyes shining.

_“‘Alan — happy birthday! I hope this manages to reach you in time. I was visiting with an associate in Snowbelle City and saw this scarf in a boutique window. I thought it would suit you. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the flames depicted with a mega evolved charizard, is it not? Well, whether it is or isn’t, I hope you like it. Congratulations on hitting thirteen! Love, Professor Sycamore.’ Oh, look, Lizardon!”_

If he hadn’t felt so much like crying—if he  _hadn’t_ been crying a little, tears blurring his vision as the Alan in the video tugged his fluffy blue scarf free from the box and threw it around his neck, beaming at Lizardon as Lizardon applauded—Augustine might have laughed at how . . . naïve and optimistic he had been back then, when he had written that letter. He hadn’t known—hadn’t so much as  _suspected_ that anything was wrong. When he wrote that letter, when he sent that gift . . . all he had been thinking about was that he was sad that Alan wouldn’t be home for his thirteenth birthday, but that maybe he would be home in time for his fourteenth the following year. He had . . . everything had seemed so simple back then, so normal (or at least as normal as Alan traveling around Kalos on a journey could be). Had he known that Lysandre was watching him . . . had he known that Alan was being so closely monitored . . .

Augustine closed the video, and wiped the tears off his cheeks. He hadn’t known. Thinking about what he might or might not have done  _had_ he known was useless. He hadn’t, and so he had been powerless to stop anything that came after.

Until the June 30th entry, Alan was only called “the boy” in Lysandre’s documents. Augustine had thought that perhaps this was purposeful on Lysandre’s part—that he had potentially referred to Alan as “the boy” as a means of depersonalizing Alan in an attempt to justify the fact that he was having his employees stalk a twelve- (and then thirteen-) year-old boy. But in the document that had pointed Augustine to the e-mail correspondence and video that had been recorded on Alan’s thirteenth birthday, he found that wasn’t the case.

_30 Jun. 20XX —_

_The boy received a birthday gift from Professor Augustine Sycamore after meeting with a delivery man in the Dendemille Town Pokémon Center._

_[Read: E-mail – 30 Jun. 20XX]_

_[See: Video – 30 Jun. 20XX]_

_The boy’s name is Alan. He is now 13 years old. His exact relation to Professor Augustine Sycamore remains unknown. However:_

_— Professor Sycamore saw fit to send Alan a birthday gift._

_— He signed the letter “love”._

_— He signed the letter “Professor Sycamore”._

_He is not Alan’s father. However, the two are close. Further investigation may yield more interesting data, but for now this is useful enough._

Augustine swallowed, and put his hand over his mouth.

_For now, this is useful enough._

He really felt that he might vomit.

He knew—he had already deduced that it was his relationship to Alan that made Lysandre target him in the first place. But this . . . it wasn’t  _only_ that Lysandre was interested in Augustine’s relationship to Alan, but more that he saw it as something  _useful_. Augustine didn’t entirely know what Lysandre meant by that. He couldn’t see how his relationship to Alan could prove useful at—

_“I can’t expose you to any danger.”  
“You distanced yourself from me for my sake?”_

The recollection hit him with the force of a fletchinder divebombing his head. Though it felt like ages ago now, it had only been a month since Augustine and Alan had spoken in the League stadium—a month since Alan had revealed that the reason why he had fallen out of contact was because he was afraid that people would hurt Augustine to take his mega evolution research for themselves. Augustine had decided against telling him how Team Rocket had already kidnapped him once for his research, feeling that relaying that information to Alan would accomplish nothing but cause him to panic, or perhaps feel misplaced guilt. But now that he thought on it—now that he  _remembered_ that conversation, remembered how tight Alan’s voice had sounded, how he had glared at the floor and trembled a little . . .

Was that what Lysandre had meant by saying their relationship could prove useful?

The June 30th document yielded no further answers. Augustine swallowed down bile as he closed the document, and continued to look through the folders on the flash drive.

There were more videos. There was a video of the battle in which Lizardon evolved from charmander to charmeleon, and despite the catch in his throat and the tears in his eyes, Augustine couldn’t help but smile as he watched Alan sweep Lizardon up into a hug and spin him around, utterly elated by his evolution. That video was dated September 7th, and that seemed correct by Augustine’s memory. He remembered that Alan had told him about Lizardon’s evolution in the last phone call they had prior to Alan’s disappearance, and that said phone call had taken place in early September. But that meant . . .

His eyes fell on the last document in the  _Preliminary Observations_ folder. He pressed his lips tightly together and double-clicked.

_9 Sept. 20XX —_

_Chandler and Cherilyn relayed information about the Ampharosite Ruins to Alan, as instructed. Since they were dressed as civilian researchers, he paid them no mind outside gratitude. As could be expected, he relayed information about the ruins to Professor Augustine Sycamore during a phone call. This is not a matter of concern. I will ensure Professor Sycamore does not get involved._

_Alan is determined to head to the Ampharosite Ruins this afternoon. I plan to meet him there._

**-**

_I have recruited Alan into my service, just as planned._

_I retrieved the Ampharosite before he arrived. Upon his arrival, he was disappointed to see that a Mega Stone had once again eluded him. When he saw that I had it, his charmeleon appeared ready for battle. Alan is capable of defeating my grunts, but not yet capable of challenging me. Pyroar was able to put his charmeleon down easily. After that, it was simple enough to bring them both to my jet and back to Fleur-De-Lis Laboratories._

_On the way to Fleur-De-Lis Laboratories, I asked Alan basic questions about himself in order to see what he would tell me. He told me his name. He at first refused to say anything else, but that attitude changed when I insinuated I knew Professor Sycamore. His response to my feigned surprise that Professor Sycamore never taught him manners implies that Professor Sycamore played some role in his childhood, even if he is not Alan’s father. Furthermore, he said that Lumiose City was his hometown “more or less.” He refused to elaborate. Further investigation may be warranted, but is not necessary at present._

_Upon arrival, I explained to Alan that I am researching mega evolution energy for peaceful purposes. I did not elaborate on my plans, nor did Alan ask for specification. He seemed tense. He suggested that I ask Professor Sycamore to help if I am looking for information pertaining to mega evolution. I countered that Professor Sycamore would be endangered if we involved him, due to criminals that would resort to any means to use that knowledge for their own ends. I insisted that Professor Sycamore must be protected. This elicited an immediate change in Alan’s demeanor. It is clear that protecting Professor Sycamore is a priority to him._

_I then revealed the Key Stone and Charizardite X that I acquired from the mega evolution guru in Shalour City. Alan was immediately enticed. I reminded Alan that if he wanted to fulfill his wish, he needed to become the strongest. He asked once again if my research was for peaceful purposes, and if he would be able to protect Professor Sycamore. I said yes, and that he could, if he became the strongest. He agreed to my terms. I reminded him before we parted ways for the evening that Professor Sycamore would be endangered if he became involved. Alan said that he understood. I am confident he will not contact Professor Sycamore again._

_His training will begin in the morning._

For a long moment, Augustine stared at the words on the page. It made sense. It made sense that Lysandre had recruited him so soon after their final phone call, for Augustine hadn’t heard from Alan again after that, hadn’t been able to find a  _trace_ of him again after that, even after he had called the Pokémon Center that Alan had called him from to see if the Nurse Joy there had any idea of where Alan had gone. It made sense that Lysandre had found him so soon, but—no, that wasn’t precisely right, was it? Lysandre had found him long before September 9th. Lysandre had found him eleven months prior, back in October, in Ambrette Town. Lysandre had him monitored, had him actively  _stalked_ by two grunts, who had then orchestrated Alan’s trip to the ruins where he would be  _just_ too late to discover the Ampharosite. Lysandre had planned it all. He had carefully watched and gathered information on Alan for nearly a year, and then had used what he learned to ensure that Alan would agree to his terms. The worst part, Augustine felt as he put his face in his hands, was that mega evolution wasn’t even really Lysandre’s trump card. Yes, the Ampharosite had caught Alan’s attention, and the Key Stone and Charizardite X held some draw, for of course they did. But the winning card that Lysandre had played to seal the deal and win the game wasn’t mega evolution at all.

It was Augustine himself.

He had pretended to know Augustine in order to gain Alan’s trust, at least to a degree. He had told Alan that Augustine couldn’t be involved, lest he be put in danger. He had promised Alan that if he grew stronger, then he would be able to protect Augustine. All of it—the reason why Lysandre took an interest in Alan in the first place, and the bait he used gain Alan’s trust and secure his employment—came back to Augustine. As touched as Augustine was that Alan loved and cared for him that much, he had to bite down hard on his bottom lip to stifle a sob.

If it wasn’t for him, Alan would have been ignored, he would have been left alone—or even if he hadn’t been, for whatever reason, Lysandre wouldn’t have had such an effective weapon to use to lure him in. Even when it came to the mega stone, Alan was only searching for mega stones in the first place to aid Augustine in his research. Without that as his motivation, Lysandre wouldn’t have had anything to draw him in. No reason to pay attention to him, no bait to entice him into his service.

Augustine took a deep, shaking breath as he scrubbed his hands over his face, smearing his tears across his cheeks as he did so. There was . . . no need to fall to pieces now. What was done was done. Lysandre had gone after Alan, and had successfully brought him into his employ, because of Augustine. There was no escaping that, and crying wouldn’t change it. He swallowed, swiped fresh tears out of his eyes, and looked back at his laptop screen.

The September 9th document was the last file listed in the  _Preliminary Observations_ folder, which left four more folders for Augustine to go through (given that he had simultaneously gone through all of the materials in the  _E-Mail Reports_ and  _Video Reports_ folders). He read over the remaining folders several times, just as he had before (the  _Physiological Data_ folder giving him an even more ominous vibe now than it had previously, given the level of scrutiny Augustine now knew Lysandre had put Alan under). But although part of him felt that he should keep reading, he looked over the folders for only a second more before he closed his laptop.

He would continue to go through the contents of the flash drive at a later date. It was important to. He had to know. But for now . . . for  _tonight_  . . . what he had seen was enough.

For a long moment (it could have been seconds, could have been minutes) Augustine sat still, staring at a spot on his bedspread without really seeing it. It felt as though a layer of freezer burn had settled over his brain, and he wasn’t sure if that was the numb shock or the exhaustion talking. But after the moment passed, and he ripped his eyes away from his comforter in an attempt to shake his brain back into action, he picked up his laptop and carried it back to its case on his vanity chair. He didn’t bother to remove the flash drive before he slid the laptop back into the case.

If he had felt exhausted when he had first retired for that night, that was nothing compared to how he felt now. Emotional upheaval did that, he supposed. However idle his body might have been as he read through the documents on the flash drive, that didn’t change the effort his brain and heart put into the task. But though exhaustion made his body heavy, his throat still felt constructed, and a feeling not unlike millions of tiny needles prickled under his skin. Everything—though the contents of the flash drive were horrifying, and while he was sure that further investigation would yield only worse information yet, everything was fine now. Lysandre was gone, and Augustine knew that to be true even if they hadn’t recovered his body. He was gone, and he was never coming back. Alan was safe. He was sleeping in the next room over. Augustine knew that. He had seen Alan gone to bed, and he hadn’t heard his door open again after that. He was in his room, asleep. He was safe. No one was stalking him now. He was  _safe._

Augustine pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, and took a deep, shaking breath. Alan was safe, he was  _safe_. . . but Augustine’s heart still felt like it was dancing on a needle bed, and he knew that no matter how exhausted he was, he would never be able to sleep like this. However safe Alan was, it wouldn’t hurt for Augustine to check. It was the least he could do, for both their sakes.

So, as stealthily as he could, he quietly slipped from his room and went to Alan’s. On instinct, he raised his first to knock, but he managed to stop himself just in time. Knocking would defeat the purpose of being stealthy in the first place. The objective was not to wake Alan, but merely to check on him, to make sure that  _this_ time Augustine’s mental reassurances that Alan was fine weren’t empty lies. He took a breath, placed his hand gently on the door handle, and opened the door slowly. The door was silent; the hinges didn’t squeak, and Augustine took care to turn the handle slowly enough so that the bolt made no sound as it pulled back from the mortice. But although the door made no sound as Augustine opened it—though he only opened it a  _crack_ , enough so that he could get a glimpse of Alan beneath the faint light of the star projection on his ceiling—Alan stirred the second the door opened, and then propped himself up on his arms as he turned toward the door, blinking and squinting a little as he looked over.

“Professor?”

For a boy who used to sleep through Augustine retrieving his baby teeth from beneath his pillow, Alan sure was a light sleeper now.

“Sorry,” Augustine said, and he forced a tiny smile, though he wasn’t sure Alan could see it. He hadn’t turned the hall light on, and though the projector Alan had in his room cast the image of a night sky on Alan’s ceiling, the light was so soft that it wasn’t very illuminating. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s fine,” Alan said. Augustine had already lost track of the number of times he had heard Alan say those exact two words over the past month. “Is something wrong?”

“No. I . . .” What was he supposed to say? The truth was that he had been checking on Alan, and he thought—he knew that if he explained it, at least in part, that Alan would understand. Augustine didn’t think he could explain about the flash drive just now—didn’t know if he would ever be able to tell Alan just how much information Lysandre had compiled on him. Alan had a right to know, but there were some things, Augustine thought, that he might be better off  _not_ knowing, for the sake of his own peace of mind. But Augustine could still explain, in part, that he had just wanted to make sure Alan was doing all right. Even if he didn’t explain his reasoning for wanting to check, he knew Alan well enough to know that Alan would accept the partial explanation, if nothing else.

“Professor?”

Augustine started a little at Alan’s prompting, and even in the faint light of the star projector, he could tell that Alan was frowning at him. Alan was frowning—he was confused, and concerned . . . but he was  _there_ , and well enough  _to_ be confused and concerned. He was safe.

_You’re safe now. I’ve got you._ That, Augustine thought, was what he wanted to say. But he also knew that now would perhaps be the most awkward and confusing time he could choose to say it.

So instead, he cleared his throat, and forced another tight smile. “It’s nothing to worry about. I’ve . . . actually forgotten what I came to tell you. But I’m sure it was nothing important. I’ll tell you in the morning, over breakfast, if I remember by then.”

Alan’s frown was audible. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” Augustine said. “So get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning, all right?”

“Okay,” Alan said, but he still sounded dubious. “Goodnight, Professor.”

“Goodnight, Alan,” Augustine said. “Sweet dreams.”

Augustine shut Alan’s door behind him, and though Alan had been laying back down as Augustine pulled back from the doorway, he still shut it with the same quiet care he had used to open it. He lingered outside the door for a second, soaking in the knowledge that Alan really was safe, before he returned to his own room, and closed his door behind him.

He was in his room for no more than two minutes before three soft knocks sounded from his door.

“Come in,” Augustine called, more on autopilot than anything, and though he knew that he  _shouldn’t_ have been surprised (for they were the only two humans in the lab, and the sound of one of the pokémon knocking would have been far different—Gabrielle’s claws at the least were likely to punch straight through the wood), he felt a stroke of surprise and puzzlement nonetheless when Alan stepped through the doorway. “Alan? Is something the matter?”

A ghost of a smile twitched the corners of Alan’s lips, possibly due to the fact that Augustine had (unintentionally) just about thrown his own words back at him. But the smile, however faint, was gone in the next second. Instead, a frown tugged his lips as a crease furrowed his brow, neither of which lessened as he spoke.

“You sounded upset when you came to my room just now,” Alan said quietly. “And . . . you look like you’ve been crying. Professor, what’s wrong?”

Augustine opened his mouth to reply, but nothing short of a voice crack came out. He closed his mouth and swallowed so that he could try again, and as he took a moment to regain his composure, he also used it to study the boy before him.

Alan would be sixteen at the end of the month. At the League, he had battled fiercely (particularly in the finals), and during the Flare crisis, he had taken that ferocity and had added layers of heroism to it. He had worn his travel clothes then, including the scarf Augustine had given him for his thirteenth birthday, and though there was nothing particularly striking about his travel clothes (his scarf aside), Alan had still cut a sharp image in the battles he had fought. He was no less a teenager then than he was now, but the heat of battle and the intensity with which Alan had faced it made him look (in the eyes of most) more  _warrior_ than  _boy_ at the time.

But now? Alan’s hair was tousled, but from sleep rather than the wind. His feet were bare, his pants were flannel, the baggy raglan shirt he was wearing bore the faded image of a snorlax on front, and he was still wearing the silver half-moon pendant Augustine had given him for his Key Stone around his neck, having apparently decided never to take it off, even for sleep.

Once again, Augustine felt like crying a little. But in lieu of that, he smiled.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said. “Everything is just fine.”

“. . . Okay. If you’re sure,” Alan said, though he sounded just as skeptical as he had back in his room, and his expression reflected that. He rubbed the back of his neck, and before Augustine could reassure him that everything really was fine, he asked, “Do you . . . want a hug?”

Augustine had opened his mouth to insist that everything was fine, that Alan had nothing to worry about, that he should go to sleep, as he had been trying to before. But Alan’s offer caught him off-guard, and as much as he wanted to convince Alan that there really was nothing amiss . . .

“Yes, actually,” he said. “I’d love that.”

This time, Alan did smile—small, soft, more of an upturn quirk of his lips than anything else—as he crossed the distance between them to put his arms around Augustine’s neck in a gentle hug. Augustine returned his embrace a little more securely, grateful for the fact that, given all that had happened, he even could.

“I’m glad you’re home,” Augustine said softly.

Alan hummed, and after a moment said, “I am, too.”

Augustine smiled, genuinely this time, and hugged Alan a little more tightly.


End file.
